EU - Production drops

 * German, Italian output down by over a fifth on the year
* Netherlands, Finland, Greece also see production fall
* ECB's Trichet takes aim at governments

By Paul Carrel

BERLIN, April 9 (Reuters) - Germany and Italy suffered record falls in industrial output in February, leading a slump across the euro zone where manufacturers are bearing the brunt of a sharp downturn in global trade.
From Greece to Finland, production fell in countries across the 16-member euro area and showed little sign of picking up any time soon, dealing a blow to recovery hopes.
In Germany, Europe's biggest economy, industrial production fell by 23.2 percent on the year -- the biggest annual drop since reunification in 1990, official figures showed on Thursday.
Italy's output fell by 20.7 percent -- its steepest drop since the series began in 1990.
Colin Ellis, European economist at Daiwa Securities in London, described the German and Italian figures as "dreadful".
"Faced with that pace of destruction, the authorities need to do more to stimulate demand and provide some relief to those businesses that are the backbone of the German and Italian economies," he wrote in a research note.
European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet bolstered analysts' expectations that the ECB will cut its headline interest rate from the current record low of 1.25 percent to 1 percent in May and then stay on hold at that level.

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